Sunflower Girl [1]

The Weirdo on Marple Street

We were in Mike's basement...again.

Lucas, Dustin, Mike and I were standing in front of the little girl who was looking at us, clearly frightened.

"Hi sweetie, I'm Emma.",I smiled softly at her and tried to make her understand that I didn't want to hurt her.

"Is there a number we can call for your parents?",Mike asked.

"Where's your hair? Do you have cancer?",Dustin's questions followed.

"Dustin, behave.",I snapped at the boy.

"Did you run away?"

"Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"Is that blood?",Lucas tried to touch her, so I did the only logical thing and slapped his hand back.

"Stop it! You're freaking her out!",Mike yelled at the boy.

"She's freaking me out!",Lucas yelled back.

"I bet she's deaf.",Dustin said and clapped with his hands loudly in front of the girl's face, which made her flinch. "Not deaf."

"Cut the crap, boys.",I hissed.  "She is obviously scared and your questions are not helping. Michael, please go and get her a warm sweater or something. She must be freezing."

The raven-haired nodded and disappeared.

Another thunder rumbled, not causing only the girl to flinch but also me.

God I hated that shit.

"Hey.",I mumbled softly. "You afraid of thunders too?"

The little girl nodded slowly.

I sat down at the end of the couch. "My brother Steve always used to calm me down when the weather was like this. He- He used to read a book to me or just talk to me. His voice always made me fall asleep. Maybe- Maybe I can read something to you later. And we can talk. You don't have to talk about yourself, sweetie, but we just want to help you."

The girl looked at me.
I could see that she was still a bit suspicious but I hoped that she would open up to me.

"Here, these are clean. Okay?",Mike suddenly appeared and gave the girl a sweater.

She looked at it suspiciously but then took it and rubbed the soft material against her cheek.

The girl got up and wanted to reach for her t-shirt to take it off but the boys and I quickly stopped her.

Well Lucas and Dustin were covering their eyes and started screaming, Mike and I just stopped her in her movements.

The Wheeler pointed to the bathroom. "See over there? That is the bathroom. Privacy. Get it?"

I led the little girl to the room and wanted to close the door when she stopped me. "You don't want it closed?"

"No.",she answered.